UPDATE 1-Ex-Monster executive charged in options scheme
April 30th, 2008 | by admin |(Adds criminal case filed against former chief operatingofficer, attempts to reach defendants’ attorneys)
NEW YORK, April 30 (Reuters) - A former chief operatingofficer at job recruitment Web site Monster Worldwide Inc(MNST.O: Quote, Profile, Research) was charged on Wednesday with securities fraud andconspiracy in connection with an alleged scheme to backdatemillions of dollars’ worth of employee stock option grants.
James Treacy is accused of conspiring with other former topexecutives at Monster to systematically backdate option grantsto company employees between 1997 and 2003, falsely inflatingthe company’s earnings, according to an indictment filed inU.S. District Court in Manhattan.
Treacy, who also had formerly held the role of Monsterpresident, was also named as a defendant in a civil casebrought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission inconnection with the alleged scheme.
In the SEC complaint, another defendant, former ControllerAnthony Bonica, was also accused of participating in thescheme. Bonica was not named as a defendant in the criminalcase announced on Wednesday.
Phone messages left for attorneys for Treacy and Bonicawere not immediately returned. (Reporting by Martha Graybow, editing by Maureen Bavdek)
